There Are Three Driving Questions to Our Study of Elie Wiesel S Night, and This Project

Night: A media exploration of a theme

The Point of It

There are three driving questions to our study of Elie Wiesel’s Night, and this project helps us to explore two of them:

§  What might Elie Wiesel's goals have been in writing Night, and how well does he accomplish those goals?

§  What do we as readers gain from reading a book like Night? How do we gain it? (How is that accomplished? How does Wiesel help us accomplish it?)

The Main Content

What you are to do with this project is dig through Night and discover a theme that Wiesel has expressed. Once you decide upon a theme (or a pair of closely related, smaller themes), you will need to find 10 lines in the text that express that theme.

When you have found those lines, you will do two things with them.

The first thing you will do is type the lines onto a document and write small paragraphs (3-5 full sentences) explaining how that line shows the theme you have identified.

The Media Display

The second thing you will do is incorporate the lines into a multimedia/digital display, using video or a PowerPoint type of tool.

Your goal is to communicate that same theme that Wiesel communicates and draw particular attention to it through pictures, video, or other media.

·  Include a minimum of 12 pictures if your pictures are photos

·  Include the 10 quotes, though the page numbers are not required on the display.


Help on the Media Display

With the digital display, the best way to understand the possibilities is to see the examples. That is why we looked at some during class when I announced the project. If you would like to see them again, you will need to head to the stushare drive on the school’s computers, then these folders: Sheehy English > English 10 > Night Project Samples, You may then see the examples contained in the folder.

·  You will likely want to use music or other audio for your project.

·  Realize that you don’t necessarily need pictures of the Holocaust to portray the theme. Modern photos and other images of the same ideas/theme are just as good.

·  I can help you with minor issues on MovieMaker, but I will not teach anyone how to use the program.

Power Point: Many students are comfortable with this program, and if you'd like to create a collage, the slides act as nice canvases for pasting pictures

Movie Maker: A few of you have used this, and it comes installed with Windows for PCs (which means we have it at school). If you're a Mac user, try iMovie. You might use this program to make an emotional slideshow with audio, or you might make your own movie, staring you and your friends.

Audacity: If you're going to attempt anything more complex with audio, you may want to use this audio editor/recorder. I can supply you with a microphone. We also have this program on the school's computers.

PhotoStory - this is a Microsoft program that puts together attractive slide shows. You'll need to download it, but that's okay.

Picnik.com: Edit your photos with an easy web editor

CCMixter.org: an online resource of music you are allowed to use.

Holocaust resources and links to the resources mentioned above are available on the website. Check the project’s page.

Sheehy English